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Sendmail On IBM Mainframes Running GNU/Linux
raffe writes: "Cnet reports that Sendmail has released a version of its e-mail server software that can run on Linux-powered IBM mainframe computers. In one benchmark test, IBM found that it was possible to house 2 million e-mail accounts on a single server, with 10 percent of the users accessing their mail at any given moment" For some reason though, IBM zSeries machines aren't listed at pricewatch ;)
This makes the ultimate spamrelay.. ;)
Hopefully, this kind of result will show the skeptics that there's a real purpose for the big boxes.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
...And in another benchmark test, IBM was also proud to announce that the massive I/O and processing infrastructure of its flagship zServer range was able to sustain 2 million Sendmail security holes, with 10 percent of the holes being exploited at any given moment...truly a new world record.
RMS's personal version of DOS? Ya know, the backslash...
There was an article in the April 98 Byte that went into the advantages of mainframes over PC's. Too bad the print archive aren't online anymore. When you buy a mainframe, you are buying support. Having the OS crash on a PC is an event that, while rarer than in the recent past, is still fairly common. Yes, even with Linux. When it crashes you reboot and, if you are unlucky, reload from backup. Having the OS crash on a mainframe is a dire event that results in a team of engineers being put on the next flight out to your site. The same applies to hardware problems. PC's have uptime measured in months ,and sometimes years. Mainframes have uptime measured in years, and sometimes in decades.
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No end user can access their mail with Sendmail, it's a mail transfer agent for relaying mail, intra or inter-node.
Mail access means reading the end-user spool through the usual MUAs and support daemons: Pine, Elm, mail(1), imapd, pop, etc.
End users do use sendmail to relay mail, but they can't access their own mail that way.
The test was of 400,000 users, not 2 million; the 2 million number is a projection that has not been tested.
If we're going to pretend we're journalists, let's pretend we took at least one semester of it, shall we?
oh. for a moment I read "house" as "hose" million email accounts.
If microsquish could get over the embarrassment of admitting that NT will never be able to do the job, they could redeploy hotmail on IBM equipment, and make it worth using.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Its just like GNU/BeOS, GNU/Win2K, GNU/OpenUNIX, GNU/Solaris, GNU/Tru64, and GNU/OSX!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It brings a tear to my eye. *sniff*
Qmail is stronger only because it doesn't run as root. Sendmail can do the same thing.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
You certainly could buy a lot of hardware for that money, but who is going to want to admin 1.2 million worth of pc hardware all running in one cluster? You would also need a very large warehouse to store all of those boxes, and the power consumption would be a bitch too. In the long run you would be much better off with the mainframe if you really need that amount of processing power.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
Then you get to maintain and run those thousand boxes. Consider power, floor space, and most importantly, people requirements. (Are you going to maintain those systems yourself? Two or three people, maybe? I don't think so.)
Sometimes you do get what you pay for.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
While we're on the subject, if IBM is so gung-ho about open standards, why haven't we seen any Lotus file formats documented? It sure would be nice if I could load up all those WordPro and 123 documents using Abiword and Gnumeric.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I read an article that Sendmail, Inc., uses IBM Mainframes for their development anyway.... Sounds to me like IBM just convinced them to sell/support the product natively on that platform.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
No, no, no.
:)
If you want to go the "Sendmail is buggy" way, well, at least, try to be informative where the alternatives are concerned.
For those who wish to try another MTA, the three big ones, not counting Sendmail, are Exim (small and easy, good for your home net), Qmail, and Postfix (fast and powerful, my personal fav). All four have their good points, and all four are certainly worth checking before you decide on one.
See? I mean, if Sendmail is still so widely used, there is a reason, you know...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
How come IBM doesn't at least try to use Postfix? I mean, Postfix is an IBM-funded thing, and was developed to be the, quote, "IBM Secure Mailer"...
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Dealing with 300K outbound postings is no biggie - I've been able to deal with that level on an old IBM RS6000-F30 (166mz 604). You don't need really big iron for outbound mail until you have more than 500K or so RCPT TO's on one piece of mail. It's mostly a matter of good queue management, and Sendmail 8.12 has new queue management code that makes it even easier (I should know, I tested it). The only real magic is not getting logjammed due to DNS waits and unreachable destinations.
On the other hand, having 40K people doing POP accesses while you're dumping mail into their mailboxes is trickier. Some of the more obvious issues:
I'm not going to get in a flame war with you but SENDMAIL IS BETTER.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I met a guy who worked in a mainframe shop. He said that one day an engineer showed up to fix the machine. They didn't know it was broken. Apparently it reported a problem to the home office, which dispatched a tech to fix the problem.
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The problem is that if you buy 1.2 million in cheap clone hardware, is that you get cheap clone hardware. The 390 mainframe is setup so that if you set it up right it will go years without a reboot. The 1000 pc clones will need a small army of people to look after them etc. Go with the mainframe!
Erlang Developer and podcaster
You're also forgetting the point of a mainframe - HA. PCs aren't designed for reliability. When you administer a cluster you expect a certain rate of hardware failures. A mainframe is expected to have 99.999+ percent uptime. The hardware is fully scoped, localized, and hot-swappable - right down to the processors. A company that's looking for that kind of uptime really has no other options. What all this Linux/390 stuff is about is selling Linux to groups who won't compromise on the uptime.
NT
It came up behind while the big boys of Unix were standing in their circle peeing at each other.
In corporate-land, the ones that have mainframes already and are facing huge IT costs and a recession, the ones who are winning the mailboxes are Exchange and Notes. They had virtually no share 10 years ago, now they have lots of network share. They also cost a lot to run (Gartner says $25+ per mailbox per month).
Now here's a company that runs on Unix, that has an IMAP server that can scale HUGELY on one (or many) boxes. That can give Secretary Joe the ability to do the admin on his group's 100 users and do that for 200 groups so that the system admin can do more important things than deal with adding a mailbox for this month's temp receptionist.
QMail? Postifix? Who? Go talk to the CEO's, the stockholders. Given Dan's support group a call at 4AM when your TLS mail isn't working right or general stability of the organization, this isn't a choice for those who don't really want to spend all their money running their computers.
Recall that when you're trying to run mail for 500+ people, there just aren't a lot of options out there. Notes and Exchange tack on the IMAP letters on their product and claim it supports standards.
For those in the Real World, take a look around at how many actual standards based tools there are with solid commercial support.
So Sendmail's MTA, IMAP server and Webmail client run on the Mainframe!? Bitchin', now I have something to counter those MSCE's who claim that we must run Exchange to survive.
No, no, no.
If you want to go the "Windows [microsoft.com] is buggy" way, well, at least, try to be informative where the alternatives are concerned.
For those who wish to try another OS, the three big ones, not counting Windows, are BSD [bsd.org] (four powerful, secure, and robuts variations), Linux [linux.org] (more distributions than you can shake a CAT 5 at), and Solaris [sun.com] (The premiere commercial *Nix). All four have their good points, and all four are certainly worth checking before you decide on one.
See? I mean, if Windows is still so widely used, there is a reason, you know... :)
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Point taken. :)
:)
Still, Windows is widely used because it capitalizes on user stupidity. Now try to have a stupid guy configure Sendmail.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Qmail and Postfix are stronger for a variety of reasons. As well as a more modular design, both are designed and configured for modern environments - no 300k configuration file full of UUCP / X400 configuration stuff people won't use. More things to configure mean more things to misconfigure and go wrong. Sendmail also doesn't support maildir AFAIK.
Not to mention violating Unix philosophy: text should be a common interface. Sure apps like LDAP and RPM use databases to keep their configuration data in (and simply allow interaction via text), but this is for performance reasons rather than legacy compatibility (i.e, just that should have been disposed of or made optional some time ago).
And Postfix is my favorite, too, after having administered Sendmail for 8 years and Qmail for 1 year. I wouldn't go back. It's quite close in many respects to how I would make an MTA.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Given that Microsoft still run their business on AS/400's, it's probably crossed their mind already :)
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
and as tommorow dawns and the hundreds of /. reading beemers trickle in and scan slashdot while waiting for Lotus Notes to load up their mail file there will be a cacophony of anguished screams as the poor abused geeks are left stammering in their seats trying their best to explain why the corporation still insists on loading them onto windows based domino servers (excepting those at the IBM Rochester facility who are lucky enough to be housed on AS/400 based domino servers instead).
(Don't get me wrong folks, domino is a great database and colaboration tool, but that's just NOT what is needed for an email solution.)